The additional readings are for your use, in case you are interested in diving in deeper, or you have read some of the required readings before. Mostly, the additional readings are intended to group together classic readings we don’t have time to get into the major topics of the class. I have placed chapters from the Oxford Handbook of the American Congress at the beginning of most additional reading sections. This is a good resource for literature reviews on the topic, published in 2011.
[O] Frances E. Lee and Eric Schickler, eds. 2011. Oxford Handbook of the American Congress. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780199559947.
Week 1
No additional readings assigned.
Week 2: Theories of legislative behavior
[O] David R. Mayhew. Chap. 38, “Theorizing about Congress.”
Rohde, Ornstein, and Peabody. 1985. “Political change and legislative norms in the U.S. Senate, 1957–1974.” In Glenn R. Parker (ed.) Studies of Congress. CQ Press. ISBN: 9780871873330.
Richard F. Fenno. 1973. Congressmen in Committees, pp. xiii–xvii, chaps. 1–2. Little, Brown.
Week 3: Congressional representation
[O] Stephen Ansolabehere and Philip Edward Jones. Chap. 13, “Dyadic representation.”
Hanna Pitkin. 1967. The concept of representation. University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520021563. [Preview with Google Books]
Morris P. Fiorina. 1974. Representatives, roll calls, and constituencies. Lexington Books. ISBN: 9780669902174,
Heinz Eulau and Paul D. Karps. 1977. “The puzzle of representation: Specifying components of responsiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 2, pp. 233–254.
Christopher H. Achen. 1978. “Measuring representation.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 22, pp. 475–510.
Richard F. Fenno. 1978. Home Style: House members in their districts.. Longman Classics. ISBN: 9780321121837.
Erikson, Robert S. 1978. “Constituency opinion and congressional behavior: A reexamination of the Miller-Stokes representation data.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 22, pp. 511–535.
William T. Bianco. 1994. Trust: Representatives and constituents. University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 9780472023790. [Preview with Google Books]
Paul S. Herrnson. 1995. Congressional elections. CQ Press. ISBN: 9780871879738.
James A. Stimson, Michael B. Mackuen, and Robert S. Erikson. 1995. “Dynamic Representation.” American Political Science Review, vol. 89, pp. 543 – 565.
Robert H. Durr, John B. Gilmour, and Christina Wolbrecht. 1997. “Explaining congressional approval.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 41, pp. 175–207.
David W. Brady, Hahrie Han, and Jeremy C. Pope. 2007. “Primary elections and candidate ideology: Out of step with the primary electorate?” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 32, pp. 79–105.
Jeffrey J. Harden. 2013. “Multidimensional responsiveness: The determinants of legislators’ representational priorities.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 38, pp. 155–184.
Week 4: Representation of race, gender, religion, and class
[O] Michele L. Swers and Stella M. Rouse. Chap. 11, “Descriptive representation: Understanding the impact of identity on substantive representation of interest groups.”
Carol Swain. 1993. Black faces, Black interests: The representation of African Americans in Congress. Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9780674076150.
Charles Cameron, David Epstein, and Sharyn O’Halloran. 1996. “Do majority-minority districts maximize substantive Black representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review, vol. 90, pp. 794–812.
David Lublin. 1999. “Racial redistricting and African-American representation: A critique of ‘Do majority-minority districts maximize substantive Black representation in Congress?’.” American Political Science Review, vol. 93, pp. 183–186.
Jane Mansbridge. 1999. “Should Blacks represent Blacks and women represent women? A contingent ‘yes’.” Journal of Politics, vol. 61, pp. 628–657.
Sarah F. Anzie and Christopher R. Berry. 2011. “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why do congresswomen outperform congressmen?” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 55: 478–493.
Richard L. Fox and Jennifer L. Lawless. 2011. “Gendered perceptions and political candidacies: A central barrier to women’s equality in electoral politics.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 55, pp. 59–73.
John D. Griffin, Brian Newman, and Christina Wolbrecht. 2012. “A gender gap in policy representation in the U.S. Congress?” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 37, pp 35–66.
Michele Swers. 2013. Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226022826. [Preview with Google Books]
Danielle M. Thomsen. 2015. “Why so few (Republican) women? Explaining the partisan imbalance of women in the U.S. Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 40, pp. 295–323.
Jaclyn Kaslowvsky and John C. Rogowski. 2022. “Under the microscope: gender and accountability in the U.S. Congress.” American Political Science Review, vol. 116, pp. 516–532.
Week 5: Congressional elections
[O] Michael McDonald. Chap. 9, “Congressional redistricting.”
[O] Robin Kolodny. Chap. 10: Campaign finance in congressional elections.
Gary C. Jacobson and Jamie L. Carson. 2019. The Politics of Congressional Elections. 10th ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN: 9781538123416. [Preview with Google Books] (NB: The latest edition is a comprehensive view of the congressional elections literature.)
Paul S. Herrnson, Costas Panagopoulos, and Kendall L. Bailey. 2019. Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington. 8th ed. CQ Press. ISBN: 9781544323084. [Preview with Google Books] (NB: The latest edition of the book originally authored by Herrnson.)
Edward R. Tufte. 1973. “The relationship between seats and votes in two-party systems.” American Political Science Review, vol.67, pp. 540–554.
John A. Ferejohn. 1977. “On the decline of competition in congressional elections.” American Politics Review, vol. 71, pp. 166–176.
Gary C. Jacobson, 1990. “The effects of campaign spending in House elections: New evidence for old arguments.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 34, pp. 334–362.
Stephen Ansolabehere, John M. de Figueiredo, and James M. Snyder, Jr. 2003. “Why is there so little money in U.S. politics?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17, pp. 105–130.
Samuel Issacharoff and Richard Pildes. 1998. “The hydraulics of campaign finance reform.” Texas Law Review, vol. 77, pp. 1705–38.
Gary W. Cox and Jonathan N. Katz. 2002. Elbridge Gerry’s Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521001540. [Preview with Google Books]
Week 6: Congressional candidates, careers, and the incumbency advantage
[O] Tracy Sulkin. Chap. 8, “Congressional campaigns.”
Joseph A. Schlesinger. 1966. Ambition and politics: Political careers in the United States. Rand McNally.
Morris Fiorina. 1977. “The case of the vanishing marginals: The bureaucracy did it.” American Political Science Review, vol. 71, pp. 177–181.
David W. Rhode. 1979. “Risk-bearing and progressive ambition: The case of members of the United States House of Representatives.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 23, pp. 1–26.
Gary C. Jacobson, and Samuel Kernell. 1983. Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections. 2nd ed. Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780300030778.
Jon R. Bond, Cary Covington, and Richard Fleisher. 1985. “Explaining challenger quality in congressional elections.” Journal of Politics, vol. 47, pp. 510–529.
Bruce E. Cain, John A. Ferejohn, and Morris P. Fiorina. 1987. The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9780674663176.
Andrew Gelman and Gary King. 1990. “Estimating incumbency advantage without bias.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 34, pp. 1142–1164.
Richard L. Hall and Robert P. Van Houweling. 1995. “Avarice and ambition in Congress: Representatives’ decisions to run or retire from the US House.” American Political Science Review, vol. 89, pp. 121–136.
Gary W. Cox, and Jonathan N. Katz. 1996. “Why did the incumbency advantage in US House elections grow?” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 40, pp. 478–497.
Steven D. Levitt and Catherine D. Wolfram. 1997. “Decomposing the sources of incumbency advantage in the U.S House.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 22, pp. 45–60.
Week 7: Committees
[O] C. Lawrence Evans. Chap. 18, “Congressional committees.”
Christopher Deering and Steven S. Smith. 1997. Committees in Congress. 3rd ed. CQ Press. ISBN: 9780871878182. [Preview with Google Books]
Thomas W. Gilligan and Keith Krehbiel. 1987. “Collective decisionmaking and standing committees: An informational rationale for restrictive amendment procedures.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, vol. 3, pp. 287–335.
Barry R. Weingast and William J. Marshall. 1988. “The industrial organization of Congress: Or, why legislatures, like firms, are not organized as markets.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 96, pp. 132 –163.
Richard L. Hall and Bernard Grofman. 1990. “The committee assignment process and the conditional nature of committee bias.” American Political Science Review, vol. 84, pp. 1149–1166.
Richard L. Hall and Frank W. Wayman. 1990. “Buying time: Moneyed interests and the mobilization of bias in congressional committees.” American Political Science Review, vol. 84, pp. 797–820.
Keith Krehbiel. 1992. Information and legislative organization. University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 9780472064601. [Preview with Google Books]
Charles Stewart III. 2012. “Congressional committees in a partisan era: The end of institutionalization as we know it?” In Jamie Carson (ed.) New Directions in Congressional Politics, 1st ed., pp. 85–110. Routledge. ISBN: 9780415885270.
Hong Min Park, Steven S. Smith, and Ryan J. Vander Wielen. 2018. Politics over Process: Partisan Conflict and Post-Passage Processes in the U.S. Congress. University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 9780472036967. [Preview with Google Books]
Week 8: Parties and leadership I
[O] Randall W. Strahan. Chap. 17, “Party leadership.”
David W. Brady, Joseph Cooper, and Patricia A. Hurley. 1979. “The decline of party in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1887–1968.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 4, pp. 381–407.
D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1991. The Logic of Delegation. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226435312. [Preview with Google Books]
Barbara Sinclair. 1998. Legislators, Leaders, and Lawmaking: The U.S. House of Representatives in the Postreform Era. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN: 9780801857126. [Preview with Google Books]
Steven S. Smith. 2007. Party Influence in Congress. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521703871.
John H. Aldrich. 2011. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America, 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226012742. [Preview with Google Books] (While not about Congress, per se, it provides a framing for parties that is embraced by most students of Congress.)
Week 9: Parties and leadership II
Douglas Dion and John D. Huber. 1996. “Procedural choice and the House Committee on Rules.” Journal of Politics, vol. 58, pp. 25–53.
Keith Krehbiel. 1999. “Paradoxes of parties in Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 24, pp. 31–64.
Sarah A. Binder, Eric D. Lawrence, and Forrest Maltzman. 1999. “Uncovering the hidden effect of party.” Journal of Politics, vol. 61, pp. 815–831.
Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2001. “The hunt for party discipline in Congress.” American Political Science Review, vol. 95, pp. 673–687.
Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins. 2007. Legislative leviathan. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521694094. (NB: This book has a similar argument to their Setting the Agenda, which is assigned this year.)
Steven S. Smith. 2007. Party Influence in Congress. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521703871.
Eric Schickler and Kathryn Pearson. 2009. “Agenda control, majority party power, and the House Committee on Rules, 1937–52.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 34, pp. 455–491.
Edward H. Stiglitz and Barry R. Weingast. 2010. “Agenda control in Congress: Evidence from cutpoint estimates and ideal point uncertainty.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, pp. 157–185.
Week 10: Decision-making
[O] Nolan McCarty. Chap. 4, “Measuring legislative preferences.”
Duncan Black. 1958. The Theory of Committees and Elections. Springer Netherlands. ISBN: 9789400942257. [Preview with Google Books]
Donald R. Matthews. 1960. U.S. Senators and their World. Norton. ISBN: 9780393006797.
Aage R. Clausen. 1973. How Congressmen Decide. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9780312394455.
Richard D. McKelvey. 1976. “Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control.” Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 12, pp. 472–482.
Thomas Romer, and Howard Rosenthal. 1978. “Political resource allocation, controlled agendas, and the status quo.” Public Choice, vol. 33, pp. 27–43.
Steven S. Smith. 1989. Call to order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN: 9780815780144.
Stanley Bach. 1990. “Suspension of the rules, the order of business, and the development of congressional procedure.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, pp. 49–63.
Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. 1991. “Patterns of congressional voting.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 35, pp. 228–278.
James M. Snyder, Jr. 1992. “Artificial extremism in interest group ratings.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 17, pp. 319–345.
Wendy J. Schiller. 1995. “Senators as political entrepreneurs: using bill sponsorship to shape legislative agendas.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 39, pp. 186–203.
Keith Krehbiel. 1995. “Cosponsors and wafflers from A to Z.” American Journal of Political Science, pp. 906–923.
Daniel Kessler, and Keith Krehbiel. 1996. “Dynamics of cosponsorship.” American Political Science Review, vol. 90, pp. 555–566.
Steven D. Levitt. 1996. “How do senators vote? Disentangling the role of voter preferences, party affiliation, and senator ideology.” American Economic Review, vol. 86, pp. 425–441.
Keith Krehbiel. 1997. “Restrictive rules reconsidered.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 41, pp. 919–944.
James J. Heckman and James M. Snyder, Jr. 1997. “Linear probability models of the demand for attributes with an empirical application to estimating the preferences of legislators.” RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 28 (sp. iss.), pp. S142–S189.
Douglas Dion and John D. Huber. 1997. “Sense and sensibility: The role of rules.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 41, pp. 945–957.
Timothy Groseclose, Steven Levitt, and James M. Snyder, Jr. 1999. “Comparing interest group scores across time and chambers: Adjusted ADA scores for the U.S. Congress.” American Political Science Review, vol. 93, pp. 33–50.
Gregory Wawro. 2001. Legislative Entrepreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives. University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 9780472088140. [Preview with Google Books]
Gregory Koger. 2003. “Position-taking and cosponsorship in the U.S House.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 28, pp. 225–246.
Richard L. Hall. 1996. Participation in Congress. Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780472088140. [Preview with Google Books]
Michael A. Bailey. 2007. “Comparable preference estimates across time and institutions for the Court, Congress, and Presidency.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 51, pp. 433–448.
Clifford Carrubba, Matthew Gabel, and Simon Hug. 2008. “Legislative voting behavior, seen and unseen: A theory of roll-call vote selection.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 33, pp. 543–572.
Gregory Koger. 2010. Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226449654. [Preview with Google Books]
Will Lowe, Kenneth Benoit, Slava Mikhaylov, and Michael Laver. 2011. “Scaling policy preferences from coded political texts.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 36, pp. 123–155.
Barbara Sinclair. 2016. Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress. 5th ed. CQ Press. [Preview with Google Books]
Sarah Binder. 2018. “Taking the measure of Congress.” Political Analysis, vol. 16, pp. 213–225.
Week 11: Policymaking and interbranch relations
[O] B. Dan Wood. Chap. 34, “Congress and the executive branch.”
[O] Michael A. Bailey, Forrest Maltzman, and Charles R. Shipan. Chap. 36, “The amorphous relationship between Congress and the Courts.”
Barry R. Weingast. 1979. “A rational choice perspective on congressional norms.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 23, pp. 245–262.
Barry R. Weingast, Kenneth A. Shepsle, and Christopher Johnsen. 1981. “The political economy of benefits and costs: A neoclassical approach to distributive politics.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 89, pp. 642–664.
Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry R. Weingast. 1981. “Political preferences for the pork barrel: A generalization.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 25, pp. 96–111.
Barry R. Weingast and Mark J. Moran. 1983. “Bureaucratic discretion or congressional control? Regulatory policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 91, pp. 765–800.
Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast. 1987. “Administrative procedures as instruments of political control.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, vol. 3, pp. 243–277.
David Mayhew. 1988. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946–1990. Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780300048353.
John Ferejohn and Charles Shipan. 1990. “Congressional influence on bureaucracy.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, vol. 6, pp. 1–20.
R. Douglas Arnold. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780300056594. [Preview with Google Books]
Robert M. Stein and Kenneth N. Bickers. 1994. “Congressional elections and the pork barrel.” Journal of Politics, vol. 56, pp. 377–399.
Steven D. Levitt and James M. Snyder. 1995. “Political parties and the distribution of federal outlays.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 39, pp. 958–980.
Charles M. Cameron. 2000. Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521625500. [Preview with Google Books]
William Howell, Scott Adler, Charles Cameron, and Charles Riemann. 2000. “Divided government and the legislative productivity of Congress, 1945–94.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 25, pp. 285–312.
John D. Huber and Charles R. Shipan. 2002. Deliberate Discretion? The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521520706. [Preview with Google Books]
William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2005. “Presidents, Congress and the use of force.” International Organization, vol. 59, pp. 209–232.
Scott Ashworth and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita. 2006. “Delivering the goods: Legislative particularism in different electoral and institutional settings.” Journal of Politics, vol. 68, pp. 168–179.
Joshua D. Clinton & John S. Lapinski. 2006. “Measuring legislative accomplishment, 1887–1994.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 50, pp. 232–249.
Week 12: Party polarization and the new “New Congress”
[O] Brian F. Schaffner. 2011. Chap. 23, “Party polarization.”
Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. 1984. “The polarization of American politics.” Journal of Politics, vol. 46, pp. 1061–1079.
John H. Aldrich and David W. Rohde. 1997. “The transition to Republican rule in the House: Implications for theories of congressional politics.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 112, pp. 541–567.
David Mayhew. 2005. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946–2002. 2nd ed. Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780300102888. [Preview with Google Books]
Sean M. Theriault. 2008. Party Polarization in Congress. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521717687. [Preview with Google Books]
Bertram Johnson. 2010. “Individual contributions: A fundraising advantage for the ideologically extreme?” American Politics Research, vol. 38, pp. 890–908.
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. 2012. It’s Even Worse than it Looks. Basic Books. ISBN: 9780465031337. [Preview with Google Books]
Francis E. Lee. 2016. Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226409047. [Preview with Google Books]
Gregory Koger and Matthew Lebo. 2017. Strategic Party Government. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226424606. [Preview with Google Books]
Nolan McCarty. 2019. Polarization. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780190867775. [Preview with Google Books]
Julian Zelizer. 2020. Burning Down the House. Penguin Press. ISBN: 9781594206658. [Preview with Google Books]
Marc Trussler. 2022. “The effects of high-information environments on legislative behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 45, pp. 95–126.
Week 13: History and development of Congress
[O] Ira Katznelson. 2011. Chap. 6, “Historical approaches to the study of Congress: Toward a congressional vantage on American political development.”
Samuel Kernell. 1977. “Toward understanding 19th century congressional careers: Ambition, competition, and rotation.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 21, pp. 669–693.
Gerald Gamm and Kenneth Shepsle. 1989. “Emergence of legislative institutions: Standing committees in the House and Senate, 1810–1825.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol 14, pp. 39–66.
Barbara Sinclair. 1989. The transformation of the U.S. Senate. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN: 9780801837661.
Sarah A. Binder. 1997. Minority Rights, Majority Rule: Partisanship and the Development of Congress. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521587921. [Preview with Google Books]
Eric Schickler. 2001. Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and Development of the U.S. Congress. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691049267. [Preview with Google Books]
Gregory J. Wawro and Eric Schickler. 2006. Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691125091. [Preview with Google Books]
Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. 2007. Ideology and Congress. Transaction Publishers. ISBN: 9781412806084. [Preview with Google Books] (Update and re-release of Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting [1997].)
Jenkins, Jeffery A. and Charles Stewart III. 2013. Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691156446. [Preview with Google Books]
